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On April 20, 1861, five days after Lincoln issued the call for 75,000
militia, a group of ladies formed in Cleveland, Ohio to "inquire how the
charity of women could best serve her country in its impending peril." Two days later as they prepared to make bandages and lint,
gentlemen from a nearby camp interrupted their efforts to inform them that one
thousand volunteers were marching into camp.
Expecting to be fully outfitted in Cleveland, these men "had brought no
blankets, and how now the prospect of passing a sharp April night, uncovered on
the ground." The ladies of
Cleveland quickly set out on a door to door "blanket raid" and by nightfall
seven hundred and twenty-nine (729) blankets were carried into camp.
The next day they resumed their efforts and "before night every
volunteer in Camp Taylor had been provided for."
By 1863, a Sanitary Commission officer believed that "while our Government
has one great army in the field, of those who are pouring our their life-blood
in its defense, the Sanitary Commission has in the home another great army,
composed of the mothers and sisters, wives and sweethearts of our brave
soldiers, working scarcely less earnestly and efficiently for the same great
end."
"Wednesday June 8th. A
surgeon at one of the Beaufort hospitals relates the case of a soldier who was
given over to die; a disease and despondency combined had robbed him of all
energy and hope. In changing his
bed, a Sanitary Commission patchwork quilt was put in place of an ordinary
bedspread. It arrested his
attention, which for some days
nothing had been able to excite; there was evidently something familiar in it;
he became thoroughly aroused, examined it more carefully, and presently
discovered his wife’s name neatly written in one corner.
His interest returned, and he rapidly recovered."
Women gave quilts to Northern soldiers from the beginning of the Civil War until the end. They made special quilts as well as utility quilts. One example was a 65" by 44" nine-patch made by the Dublin Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society in New Hampshire inscribed in ink with names and dates from Sept. to Oct. 1863 and stamped with the oval logo of the Sanitary Commission. In 1864, a group of school children made 35 patchwork blocks with white centers on which was written the name and age of each child. One block was inscribed "Bradford County. For any soldier who loves little children." In Nov. 1864, a Minnesota soldier in Tennessee reported that being unable to get a blanket from Uncle Sam, he had gone to the Sanitary Commission and had been given "that splendid quilt that your pennies and busy little fingers made."
Sharon
Roberts is a veteran civilian reenactor in the RACW. She coordinates
the activities of the RACW Sanitary Commission and assists with orientation
for new civilian members. She can usually be found working on her latest
quilt, or teaching others the art of quilting. Each year the Sanitary
Commission completes a lovely reproduction Civil War era quilt, which is raffled
off to a lucky winner each fall.
Sharon is an avid quilter, and is a professional speaker on the subject of Civil War quilts. When she is not reenacting or quilting she works full-time as a Social Worker Supervisor for Tehama County.
